WHEN a school heating boiler broke down it was repaired by an engineer who travelled almost 300 miles to do it, a councillor claimed last night.

Llais Gwynedd county councillor Gwilym Euros Roberts said a problem occurred with the heating system at Ysgol y Moelwyn, Blaenau Ffestiniog last December.

He said school officials called the maintenance unit in the council's education department and they arranged someone to fix the problem.

A furious Cllr Roberts said: "Within a day or so a plumber arrived to try to remedy the problem.

“He’d travelled not from Blaenau, Porthmadog, Caernarfon or Bangor, but from Mumbles near Swansea. That's a journey of 136 miles one way, a near four-hour journey.

"Such a situation is absurd and totally against the council's values and far from being acceptable.

“How does this contribute to the local economy or protect the environment?

Mr Roberts added: "At every meeting Gwynedd council meeting we’re told by officers we need to make savings and cut budgets and services to balance the books.

“One would imagine a good way of doing this would be to buy as many goods and services as we can locally, thus helping the local economy and protecting the environment by reducing the council's carbon footprint."

However, a Gwynedd council spokesman said Swansea-based Gower Gas and Oil is responsible for maintaining all the council's heating systems in the county's schools and until recently employed local engineers.

"Gower Gas and Oil, a specialist heating engineering company, won this contract through competitive tendering as it was able to do the work to the required standard for the lowest cost,” he said.

"This contract will come to an end in March 2009 and new tenders for a period of three years will be invited in April.